


on speaker

by sapphirestark



Series: peter parker's work-life-balance: how to manage school, an internship, and being a superhero [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (rated teen bc of like 2 curse words), Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Infinity War never happened, Irondad, Pepper and May are only mentioned, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony calls Peter while he's in school and his teacher makes him answer on speakerphone, basically this is just some pointless fluff for the holidays, spiderson, we also mostly ignore civil war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 09:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16992453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphirestark/pseuds/sapphirestark
Summary: “Parker! Is that your phone?” Mr Davids whisper-yelled, as if that did anything in a completely silent classroom. His classmates looked up from their tests to watch the exchange, and Peter couldn’t blame them.He could only think of one person who would call him while he was in school, and it was the same person with both the power and the intent to program Karen into never fully silencing his calls.“Uh, no?”





	on speaker

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the holiday fluff challenge by @buckysbeardliness on tumblr; more specifically, for the prompt "i'm not an idiot. i know how to trick you into eating your fibre.” which just screamed "irondad" to me so here we are! hope you enjoy :)

The 32nd pedestrian of the day to walk past the school (he’d been counting) was an elderly lady carrying two bags of groceries through the New York winter snowfall. Peter frowned and tapped his fingers against the table; normally, as Spiderman, he would have offered to help her, but right now he was forced into inactivity by his Monday morning AP calculus class.

For the past twenty minutes, he’d been staring out of the window, the test on his desk long having been completed. They still had ten minutes of class left in which he had to be quiet so the others could finish their work. Mr Davids had really been focusing on derivatives for the past month and Peter couldn’t say he found it very difficult; mostly he was just bored, playing on his phone or discreetly doing calculations for his lab work instead. Unfortunately, they’d had to place their phones on the teacher’s desk before the test today, so his normal go-to for killing time wasn’t available. But he figured that staring at snowflakes and watching the people walk by would do the trick as well. 

He wasn’t as exhausted as he sometimes was on Mondays; instead of patrolling, he’d spent all Sunday in the lab with Tony, designing Mark 82 and making some tweaks to the Spiderman suit. And he wasn’t going to say no to a Christmas movie night next to enormous panorama windows with the snowy skyline of New York either.

His spider senses tingled slightly before he heard a phone starting to vibrate on Mr Davids’ desk. Peter frowned; who wouldn’t turn off vibrate before handing in their phone? Didn’t all GenZ kids have their phone on an eternal silent mode? He watched his teacher scanning the rows of phones in front of him before picking one up. Peter’s heart dropped when he saw the sleek black design of the newest generation of StarkPhones.

“Parker! Is that your phone?” Mr Davids whisper-yelled, as if that did anything in a completely silent classroom. His classmates looked up from their tests to watch the exchange, and Peter couldn’t blame them. He could only think of one person who would call him while he was in school, and it was the same person with both the power and the intent to program Karen into never fully silencing his calls.

“Uh, no?” 

Mr Davids glared at him. “Since this apparently can’t wait until after class, I want you to answer it. On speaker.” 

If Peter’s heart had dropped before, it was now plummeting straight towards the other side of the earth. Mr Davids couldn’t be serious. There was no way he could answer this call without blowing his cover, both as Tony Stark’s - intern? mentee? unofficially adopted son? - and potentially also as Spiderman, because why the hell would an intern have Tony Stark’s number, and worse, actually be called by him? And what if Mr Stark referenced something no one was supposed to know about?

“What? No - Sir, I’m sorry! Just ignore it, I’m sure it’ll stop -” Peter didn’t even notice he’d stood up from his chair as he looked at his teacher pleadingly, but now as all of his classmates were fully invested, Mr Davids wasn’t going to back down. Peter's suspicions about the identity of the caller were further supported when he saw that even though his phone was still vibrating, the screen stayed black. Or maybe that was just Karen trying to save his ass once more. 

“Now, Parker.” Mr Davids’ tone left no room to compromise. 

He sighed. _Please just let it be May. Or telemarketers. Or literally anyone else._

“Karen? Answer it, please.” The realisation that solely having an AI on his phone in the first place was slightly suspicious came too late, and only as his teacher almost dropped his phone when Karen’s voice answered, clear and light as day and a thousand times more natural than the Siri’s of the eleven iPhones on Mr Davids’ table.

“Are you sure, Peter? I could accept the call on your behalf.” Karen’s voice dulled the obnoxious vibrating down to the background. Peter breathed out, trying to even his heartbeat. No doubt the actual Friday had gotten an emergency report about his vitals by now. 

“Yes. Put it on speaker, if you don’t mind.” He regretted not looking into Friday’s and Karen’s capabilities more - would they notify Mr Stark that they had an audience? 

The vibrating stopped abruptly. Mr Davids was still holding Peter's phone at an arm’s length, but made no move to give it to him, instead staring at it in an attempt to figure out where Karen’s voice had been coming from. Peter cleared his throat, raising his voice slightly to account for the distance to the mic. 

“Uh, h-hello?” 

A loud clang echoed from the phone, and electric whirring filled the background. Someone cursed.

 _“Goddamn- oh, hey kid. Friday informed me your teacher made you answer instead of letting me talk to Karen. Any reason for that?”_  

Peter didn’t dare to look at his classmates, but he was sure most of them had figured out who was on the other end of that line. They weren’t a science-based school for nothing; Tony Stark was somewhat of an idol for almost everyone in that room. 

Peter took a deep breath. Maybe if he just behaved like a regular intern, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Surely Tony called all the interns regularly out of hours to talk about… well, nothing. This obviously wasn’t a mission and Tony sounded perfectly normal, so Peter couldn’t imagine why he was even calling him. 

In what he assumed to be a professional voice, Peter tried his best to adapt what he thought was intern-like behaviour. “We’re in an exam right now, Mr Stark. How - uh, how can I assist you, sir?”

In the corner of his eye, Peter swore he saw Ned press his face into a tissue trying to contain his laughter. 

_“Sir?”_ the phone echoed, Tony’s voice a mixture of amused and disbelieving. _“And here I was thinking we had made progress on that part. Please, kid, I know you go back and forth on calling me Tony, but at least let the alternative be ‘Mr Stark’. ‘Sir’ sounds even more dreadful.”_

“Yes, Mr Stark.” Peter was actually getting more comfortable just calling him Tony, and caught himself twice already almost calling him "Dad" (not that he would ever admit that). How ironic.

_“Also, hello, Mr Davids. From what I’ve heard you teach calculus and have been doing the easiest derivatives known to mankind for the past six weeks.”_

Mr Davids clearly hadn't been expecting to be addressed and almost threw the phone back onto the desk like it had burned him.

“Uh, yes, sir. It’s an honour to-” - _“Yeah, yeah,"_ Tony dismissed Mr Davids' efforts. _"It’s not why I’m calling, but since I have you on the phone - your school has a STEM profile, so derivatives seem a little... mundane.”_

“Oh, but, this is an AP class, Mr Stark, sir,” Mr Davids rushed to defend himself. Peter restrained himself from scoffing; he was convinced Mr Davids only let them work on that topic for so long because it was easy to correct their homework about it. 

_“Well, your “advanced” isn’t advanced enough. Peter engineers nano suits, derivatives aren’t exactly a challenge then.”_

Silence ensued and Peter swore that his fellow students had never been this quiet in any class ever. Traitors, the lot of them. Also, they all stared at him, and it occurred to him that maybe they got hung up on the nano suit part. 

“Uh, I don’t, like, fully build them. I just run some numbers. It’s nothing, really -” 

_“Kid, stop selling yourself so short. We both know you do more than that. Oh, crap - just hold on a second, DUM-E dropped something into Mark 82’s wiring -”_ Metallic noises were coming from the speakers, whereas the whirring had stopped. DUM-E had probably been evicted from the lab. _“I swear, that bot will be the end of me. Either him or you, at least.”_  

Peter couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I never dropped something into any Mark.” 

_“You blasted a hole in the wall of my lab when you tested the repulsors.”_

Peter huffed. “So did you the first time.” 

Flash dropped his pen. Oh, right. His classmates. He risked a glance around the room and was met with even more shocked faces than before - if because of the fact he got to test the repulsors or because of his supposedly rude tone towards Tony Stark, he didn’t know. Probably both. 

_“Wow, did Pepper tell you that? I feel betrayed, kid.”_ Peter could practically see a fond eye roll happening on the penthouse floor of Stark Tower. _“Anyway, I’m calling because it came to my attention that you skipped breakfast, and I made a promise to your aunt that I wouldn’t let you skip any meals.”_

Peter wanted to sink into the ground and never return. He’d never wished to be doing calculus as much as he did right now. He glanced at Ned next to him who looked like he was about to implode, and then at Flash on the other side of the room, who was paler than he’d ever seen him, very much like the rest of his class and his teacher. Peter sighed; well, it couldn’t get worse than this anyway.

“Friday told on me?” He glared half-heartedly at his phone, even though it wasn’t Karen’s fault. He hoped it translated over to Friday. 

_“You bet she did, with the best intentions. I would’ve been happy to just let Karen know, but maybe having an audience will be an educational experience for you. Now, do you promise to never do that again or do I have to keep embarrassing you in front of your classmates?”_  

Peter rolled his eyes. “Fine. I promise.” He was actually pretty sure that if anything, this would probably help his reputation. He glanced at Flash who looked like he’d seen a whole army of ghosts, and had to suppress a grin. This would at least shut up his Peter’s-internship-is-a-lie conspiracy theory. 

_“Good. Otherwise I’d have to ask Cap to make a breakfast edition of that hot lunch PSA to be shown at your school, and I think neither you nor your fellow younglings want that.”_

“That’s blackmail, Mr Stark,” Peter quipped. The image of Captain America pondering the importance of a hearty breakfast certainly was comedically appealing, but he also knew that Tony would 100% follow through on getting his school to actually show it. 

Tony scoffed. _“Well, yeah. I’m not an idiot, I know how to trick you into eating your fibre. Glad we’ve come to an agreement. Now if you’ll excuse me, Friday tells me there’s a meeting I should’ve been at twenty minutes ago. Happy will pick you up after school.”_

“Alright, Mr Stark. Please tell Pepper I said hi.”

_“Sure, kid. I swear, by now she prefers you over me.”_

Peter grinned. It was too easy to fall back into their usual banter, just like they did when they were alone in the lab or the penthouse with just Pepper or Rhodey around. The damage of disillusioning his classmates was already done, so what did he have to lose? “Don’t worry, Mr Stark. Only by about twelve per cent.” 

_“That’s it, you’re disowned. I’ll never give you my company. You’re officially out of my will.”_

“Actually, Pepper says it’s only twelve per cent your company.” 

A beat of silence. Peter's grin grew wider and wider, and he bit his lip to suppress his laughter.

_“I’m never letting you near Pepper again.”_

Soft laughter bubbled up in Peter, even though he was pretty sure Flash and possibly also Mr Davids had had a stroke by now. “Okay, good luck with that, Mr Stark!” 

Tony sighed, but Peter heard the fondness in his tone. _“See you, kid. Invite Ted and Michelle to our Christmas party. Bye, Ted and class. Mr Davids, maybe pick up a college textbook on calculus.”_ Peter practically heard Tony’s smirk through the phone. 

“Karen, you can hang up now.” 

Karen complied and left the room with deafening silence. Peter realised he was still standing and sat down, which didn’t do anything to get the attention off of him. He wished MJ were in this class, she wouldn’t have been impressed by any of this and they’d probably already be either doing calc again or be on the way to their next class. As it was, he was left to fend for himself. 

“What the _fuck_ , Parker?” Flash didn’t even get reprimanded by Mr Davids, who very much looked like he agreed with the sentiment. Peter looked around, at a loss as to what to say as an explanation mainly because he still didn’t really know how any of this happened in the first place. He nervously carded a hand through his hair, unsure what to do. 

He was about to start debating whether he should just make a run for it when Ned shook himself out of his stupor of having been addressed and invited to a party by Tony Stark himself - even if by the wrong name, which Peter was pretty sure was just a shtick - and came to Peter’s aid. 

“Well, he did tell us he had an internship.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and merry christmas/happy holidays! comments with feedback are always appreciated. :)
> 
> (say hi to me on tumblr: http://www.sapphirestark.tumblr.com)


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